Q re menu buttons

I'm doing my first DVD authoring, using FCP 5 and DVDSP 4.

What are the options if I want to give viewers the choice (via mini pulldown menu or something)of either:

a) playing the video named on the menu text-button; and

b) playing the video and having it loop indefinitely ?

I also want to have two buttons on the bottom of the main menu, one to say "Play all" and the other to say "Play all and loop" How to do this?

Thanks.

Hi Walter,

I am not sure why a) is different to Play all or why b) is not the same as Play all & Loop?

For a) Target the Track and set the Tracks End Jump/Menu Call to Button 1.

For b) Select the Track, add a Story. Add the Chapter Entr(y)(ies) to the Story (so you have duplicated the Track without adding to the Projects size). Now set Button 2's Target to the Story and the Stories Menu Call to Button 2 on your Menu. The key is to set the Stories End Jump to itself, which means it will play again at the end. It will Loop forever until the user hits Menu/Title or stops the player.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the help.

Re your Q, "I am not sure why a) is different to Play all or why b) is not the same as Play all & Loop?":

There are several videos listed on the menus. I want viewers to have the option of playing each one singly or playing it and looping it, AND to have the option of playing ALL the videos or playing them all and looping them.

I'm not quite clear how to give them this latter choice.

It depends how many options you have. You only have a finite amount of Tracks, Stories & Slideshows you can use in dvdsp and a finite amount of chapters as well as Menu buttons per Menu.

If you are within the bounds that dvdsp allows then the best way to do it would be, in basic terms:

Project has 5 movies.

Track1 - Track with all 5 movies broken up by chapter markers. That is the Play All option at the bottom of the Menu to play all the content.

For Movie 1.
Story 1 - Chapter 1 entry only - End Jump to Menu 1 Button 1.
Story 2 - Chapter 1 entry only - End Jump to Story 2 (itself so it loops)
Story 1&2 - Menu Call - Set to B1 & B2 respectively.

Repeat this for other Movies.

For Movie 2.
Story 3 - Chapter 2 entry only - End Jump to Menu 1 Button 3.
Story 4 - Chapter 2 entry only - End Jump to Story 4 (itself so it loops)
Story 3&4 - Menu Call - Set to B3 & B4 respectively.

Hope that helps a bit. If you can't play within the limits, have mixed aspect ratios etc then you'll need to script it probably...

Does that help?

Oh and the other option at the bottom of the menu, Play all loop, would be yet another Story with all the Chapter Entries in. 5 Chapters in this example, in the correct order, 1-5, which is basically same as duplicating the Track but without increasing project size.

All you need to do is set the End Jump & Menu Call option different to Track 1,

Cheers